Wulff

We're all painfully aware.

Hello brother, welcome to the club.

Seriously. I can understand being excited for a game and wanting other people to be too, but literally every single post Spectre has made has incorporated Destiny in some manner, be it directly discussing it or linking various quotes from the fucking Destiny wiki page. Half of them read like poorly disguised advertisements and I would be willing to believe that they were indeed a viral marketer, but this forum is so small that it wouldn't make much sense from an efficiency point of view, so I guess he's just that dedicated.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I've been forcing myself to play Final Fantasy XIV recently, because a fair few of the people I hang around online are playing it and I want to get in on that. Unfortunately they're all max level and unfortunately the leveling process of this game is the worst I've ever experienced in any MMO and I've played quite a few. I very much belong to the more casual side of the MMO audience, in the sense that I got my first taste of the genre with World of Warcraft and never got to experience the much more unforgiving games of the past. Since World of Warcraft, I have tangled with a multitude of different MMO's for various periods of time. Aion, Warhammer Online, Guild Wars 1 & 2, RIFT, The Old Republic, Tera and Wildstar. Out of all of those, I've never been as frustrated leveling my character as I have been in FFXIV. It seems that in a bid to force variety upon the player, the developers of FFXIV decided to just not put enough quests into the game to actually reach max level. On top of that, the "Main Scenario Quest", which is a long-running quest that moves the story of the game and your character along, is level-gated, meaning that you could be going through it and then suddenly hit a brick wall because you're not a high enough level to accept the next part of the MSQ. So what are the alternatives? A pitiful amount of sidequests that past level 35 won't even be enough experience to push you through the MSQ. A world-quest type system called "Fates" which spawn on the map for a set period of time that unfortunately suffer from being very inefficient to do, because half of them are painfully slow to complete without other players actively helping you out. Dungeons, which will give you a very nice bonus experience ONCE per 24-hours and otherwise are alright for experience gain, but are very boring to spam continuously. Finally you have a unique leveling system called "Palace of the Dead", which is extremely powerful for experience gain theoretically, but unfortunately you have to clear it in 10-floor increments at a time and if your party wipes at any point, all progress is lost and 0 experience is gained. On paper, I realize that it might not sound so bad, but once you hit level 45+ it starts to become truly fucking tedious and my enjoyment of the game has been very rapidly declining, to the point where I am technically only a few steps away from being able to move into the next part of the game, but I am demotivated to log on to my character, because I know that the only way forward is by subjecting myself to extreme boredom.

Last night I dreamt that I was at home relaxing. I had just gotten out of the shower and was walking around butt-naked, when I noticed this man in a red coat on the lawn. I opened a window and called out to him, I told him that he was on private property and that he had best leave now. Immediately he pulled out a device from under his coat that looked like a gun and pointed it straight fucking at me. I quickly ducked away from the window and moved into another room while this weird of feeling of dread filled my stomach, I can't really explain it, but if you've ever been in a situation where you think there is a genuine chance you might die, you'll know what I mean. So I sit tight for a few moments before I peek out of the window and I see the guy still outside with his rifle-looking item and he's walking around scanning the exterior of my house. I decide that enough is enough and scramble into my bedroom to grab my phone. I dial 112 (Which is my country's equivalent of 911) but I get an automated message saying that the emergency service phone number has recently been changed to 115 and the line I am currently on is now for postal service complaints. So I dial 115 instead and I get an automated message stating that a strange red-coated man has been reported in my neighborhood and if I am calling about that, there is nothing to worry about unless you've made contact with the man. The message then prompted me to "Press One" if I had made contact with the red-coated man. So I press one and I get put on hold to very stereotypical and cheesy waiting music. At this point I decide to take my fucking chances and I grab a blanket and run out of the house as fast as I can, still butt-naked, only covering myself with said blanket. I don't see the red-coated guy anywhere and I am ducking and weaving in random directions through various different gardens and brushes. I finally get to the outskirt of the city when my call to the police department goes through. I get on the line with this police officer who is talking to me in a very soft and sing-songy voice as if I was a toddler. He asks me if I am having trouble with the red-coated man and I scream at him that yes I fucking am. At that moment I spot the red-coated man out of the corner of my eye. He is marching straight towards me, raised rifle and all. As he closes the distance, I drop my phone and just charge at him. He doesn't fire at me or anything, he just walks intently towards me with a stern look on his face as I rush towards him. Once I get right on top of him, I slap the rifle out of his hands and he just bursts into flames. Not like exploded into gibs or anything, but he just fucking caught fire. As he burned he smiled at me and gave me a nod of approval and then I woke up.

No one cares. Keep your notes to yourself in the future for the sake of the rest of us, thanks.

I didn't contend that. You're confusing me trying to outline more clearly what I believed Paero's point was with my own opinions. You seem to be arguing with me from a totally different base of understanding. You haven't showed why anything is bullshit, all you've done is jump down the throat of another user without reading his post properly, misrepresenting what he said in his post out of either ignorance, laziness or malice, given him unwarranted attitude for no fucking reason other than your own misplaced outrage and then continued to argue points that no one with half a brain would ever disagree on. By the way, it's been several posts now and you still haven't showed us where Paero stated that he didn't want high level players to receive their "due renumeration" . Do you really think that this conclusion is an honest summary of Paero's original post. Do you really think that? You should probably retract your last four or so posts in this thread as a whole tbh.

Right, it leads back to what you said. Not what Paero said. Originally you concluded that Paero quote "wanted to be able to watch an esport without the players getting any of the remuneration they deserve from being at the top of a highly competitive and incredibly skilled game" unquote. I ask again, at what point did he say that? You seem to be reaching conclusions that simply does not exist in his original post and rather you are extrapolating meaning from his words that isn't there. Posing the question of why high level players should even bother playing the game if they can't make a living out of it seems incredibly redundant. Anyone with the slightest bit of common sense would be able to conclude that they shouldn't. If there is not enough money to go around within a competitive scene of any given game, then it would be a disastrous financial decision for anyone to try to make a living off of it. If you start letting a game you love and the time you dedicate to playing and improving at it influence your daily life, such as the example you give with showing up for work late or tired, then you're a fucking idiot. Nothing more to it and I am not sure what argument you're trying to establish with that example. As for your point about competitive scenes without proper monetary support artificially limiting the highest skill limit that players are able to show, I agree. I don't agree completely, but I agree to an extent. Will you concede that it isn't necessarily a problem for all competitive games? Are you of the belief that if there isn't enough money in the competitive scene of a game to incentivize players going at it as a full-time job and pushing themselves to limits they would not be able to while also maintaining an education or a job outside of playing the game, then the game is not worth the time or the effort? What do you think of the idea of letting a game run its natural course and not trying to keep it alive by pumping money into it? Do you think that no one should ever bother playing games competitively because it might die out after some time and in that case the time investment is not worth it? Do you think that games that develop regional communities independent of each other are worse than games that incorporate everyone internationally? I'm not even sure what the point of this paragraph is. Please elaborate on why stating facts that no one has disagreed with was necessary. I never stated it was accurate for all games, it was an unspecified example I propped up in order to make Paero's original point more clear. You're arguing points that no one ever contested. Keyword being 'probably'.

But that's not what he said at all. While his post might be in need of a few commas, less brackets and some proof-reading, it is not even close to being incoherent enough that anyone with the most rudimentary level of reading comprehension would conclude what you have in the quoted text. In fact you seem to be entirely mistaken in your understanding of what he wrote. Did you perhaps not read the post in its entirety? Paero doesn't want to see "amateur" competitive players shittalking each other. He wants to see players (of all skill levels) that have a genuine love and deep investment in the game express their passion on the stage as they win or lose, rather than the cold and corporate approach you can find within tournaments that are funded and hosted entirely by private companies, who care more about maintaining their family friendly public image, than they do the game for which they're hosting the tournament. He is saying that he believes, that having competitive communities grow around a game is more rewarding as both a player and a viewer, compared to games that were made from the ground up with esports in mind, because those games have a tendency to sometimes feel soulless and corporate in their approach. He does so as a counterpoint to the idea that Nintendo should "invest" in the competitive scene of Smash Brothers. He admits that he is not a big fan of that game himself, but that he sees merit in having a game where the community dictates the pace of what is going on, rather than having big brother corporate logo hovering over the scene constantly, making sure that no one says or does something out of line. To him that means seeing one of his favourite players beating a fierce rival and getting excited about it. Getting up from his chair, fist-pumping the air, hollering in excitement and perhaps even giving his opponent a smartass comment to really keep that rivalry going. He's not saying that's how it "should be", he's saying that's how he personally prefers it. You present his argument as if he is only interested in the "shittalking" and as if he doesn't think players should receive their due dilligence for their achievements. Where did he ever state that? Please point that part out to me. I personally think it's pretty lame to viciously attack someone's opinions without even having the common courtesy to read and understand their post, but hey, that's also just my opinion.

Hello? What the fuck is happening.

But that's the thing, Senran Kagura doesn't fall into either of those two categories in my opinion. I can totally understand why most people probably would be averse to playing Senran Kagura, because it definitely has got a lot of fanservice. That being said, if you were to remove the fanservice, the game would still be an extremely solid 3rd person beat 'em up. I think it's unfair to say that Senran Kagura would be a mediocre at best game if you took away the fanservice. That's pretty much the one thing that makes it stand out, the fact that you buy an anime tiddy game expecting to get some anime tiddy and then you end up with gameplay that is really fun, together with a well thought out character progression system. Out of curiousity, have you played Estival Versus? This isn't me trying to call you out or anything, it's just that what you're describing Senran Kagura as sounds a lot like myself before I played the games.

Shinovi Versus, but I've finished that now and I am onwards to Estival Versus.

Senran Kagura is unironically a really fun game.

Can't fault players for abusing imbalance overlooked by the developer, even if it does make me want to rip my hair out. While the Carl Gustav frustrated me, I had 3 platinum stars with the VSS Vintorez, you know that that little foldable and suppressed sniper rifle that had the capacity to fire subsonic rounds full auto? This fucking thing That was most definitely up there on the tier list of busted weapons, because it had the same qualities as the AN-94 (Lethal at long range as well as being an effective weapon in close-quarters), only this thing also had a powerful scope allowing for more precision sniping, while still being able to cut a swathe through like 6 guys with one magazine because it's hip-fire spread was just non-existent and its rounds killed with 1 shot to the head and 2 to anywhere else. Combined with the fact that this was a weapon useable by the Recon class (so you had access all the special equipment in the game like C4, Claymore mines and those fucking little sensor balls that you could toss and spot enemies on the map automatically), it basically meant that you could quite easily make a loadout that could do pretty much everything. Kill at range, compete with assault rifles and submachine guns up close, take out vehicles, support for your team, blow up buildings and blow up objectives on Rush. Thanks DICE. Point is I abused broken shit as well, so I can't really judge anyone.

I'm almost three weeks late to the party, but I wanted to chime in and say that I also believe that Bad Company 2 was one of the best multiplayer games ever produced and I probably the Battlefield game I put the most hours into online, except for possibly Battlefield 2, not entirely sure. That game was absolutely stellar on release and it had sound design that to this day has yet to be matched as far as I am concerned. It looked great, it sounded great and it played great. It did unfortunately have some balance issues and I had my fair share of frustrations during the ~300 hours I played the multiplayer. The M2 Carl Gustav was absolutely the most unfun thing in the entire game to play against. It might be true that the weapon has anti-personnel properties in real life, but the kill-radius on the blast from that thing was fucking absurd. You could get caught on the edge of the blast and still go from 100 to 0. Thankfully it was nerfed eventually. Then there was the AN-94 assault rifle, which true to real life had the ability to fire two-round bursts in such rapid succession, that the recoil from the second round fired could barely be felt by the wielder, meaning that it was essentially an extremely potent double-tap weapon with a very good rate of fire. This becomes a problem when the weapon is more accurate at range than every single bolt-action rifle in the game, will kill you in a single tap because technically it hits you with two bullets and also has close-combat prowess when switched to full auto. It was basically the perfect weapon at all ranges, for all situations. Speaking of shit that would kill you with deadeye accuracy from across the map that really shouldn't, who could forget the shotgun slug customization option. For some reason, DICE thought it would be a great idea to make the slugs have 0 damage drop-off at range, which meant so long as you hit your target, you could blast a guy from full health to dead from across the map with a single shotgun tap. Anyway, that was a years frustrations of playing that game bubbling to the surface. Out of over 100 weapons, the game had like 5 or 6 that were an issue balance wise, it was honestly pretty impressive for the most part and they managed to strike a rare balance between infantry and armour. Great fucking game, shame the multiplayer community is hanging on by a thread at this point.

In the wake of a turbulent year of politics both at home and internationally, I've found myself making an attempt at getting a little bit more involved in general. I used to be a member of the Social Democratic youth party and I was actually very active at rallies and debates in the year leading up to the general election and when my party ultimately won the majority vote, I was stoked. The SD government turned out to be incompetent and left my country in a worse state than they had received it. They didn't uphold any of their promises and in general left a stain on the history of the party. After that I left the youth party and distanced myself from politics in general. Now here's the core of the problem I am currently having. I don't know if political rhetoric changed drastically since I was involved, or it has always been like this and I didn't pay much attention to it as a teenager, but the amount of absolute bullshit people are conceding the politicians and political parties that peddle opinions that fit their world view is insane! I have been reading debates on online forums, listened to political discussion on podcasts and even taken time out of my schedule to watch political debates on TV. I have seen laymen and "your average joe" present their opinions and fiercely debate them and I've seen professional politicians do it exactly the same and they seem to all be guilty of the same thing. When did it become acceptable to counter arguments with the excuse that the words being uttered are "just hyperbolic"? It's seriously, seriously frustrating to me, that if I am discussing/arguing/debating a political issue with someone, they often end up defending their point of view with "Well that's not what (s)he meant" in reference to a statement I am questioning. It happens A LOT with Trump supporters in my experience and it happens A LOT with really left-leaning liberals. They'll deflect criticism of their favoured politicians by stating that what they said isn't actually what they meant or say that it was "clearly hyperbole" and shake their heads at the fact that I was too stupid to realize that. Is that shit really OK? How can we live in a world where a politician can make a concrete statement on live television and then later his supporters twist his/her words into something that wasn't actually said in order to defend said politician? I don't get it at all. Am I retarded? Combined with the serious case of "Whataboutism" that is currently consuming many political debates, I honestly feel deflated and disinterested in politics once more, because it turns out that what you're saying is actually 100% up to interpretation and as such, any statement can be twisted into something completely different and thus a politician can never be held accountable for what they say and/or promise. I feel like politics have probably always been like this and I am just noticing now, but fuck me dude.

Anyone followed the recent YouTube drama involving JonTron, Destiny, Sargon of Akkad and Naked Ape? This is like the prime example of what I was getting at in this post, my goodness.

Haven't seen it, what's the appeal?

It's Sunday. I'm bored. It's time for a game of WEG. Template

I already posted my picture but seeing as people are blogging, I'm going to as well. The year of anime that was 2016 feels very foggy to me in retrospect. In general, I just had a really hard time picking out stuff that was really memorable in terms of anime, which is why my picture is very empty compared to the 2015 one. I was struggling to put shows/characters in each of the categories and I couldn't even think of honourable mentions for most of them. I blame the fact that so much happened in my personal life (joining the army, finishing basic, blablabla). It actually bothers me, because I don't think that 2016 was a bad year for anime, which is why I am going to earnestly try and think back on the year in this post.